Rosemary Royston to lead “Jaw Droppers!” Poetry Workshop

  The North Carolina Writers’ Network-West is offering “Jaw Droppers!”, a poetry workshop led by artist and poet Rosemary Royston Saturday, July 26, from 10 to Noon at 355 Main Street N, Suite C, Hiawassee, GA.

Rosemary Royston

A “Jaw Dropper” is what Emily Dickinson described as the top of her head being taken off.  In this session, Rosemary will share poems that struck her as jaw droppers.  The poems will be discussed and prompts provided for writing opportunities.  All levels are welcome, as are writers of any genre.  The fee for attending is $40.

Rosemary holds a Master of Fine Arts from Spalding University and has taught writing and poetry classes and workshops in North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee.  A former assistant professor of English at Young Harris College, she now teaches a class on Creative Writing Across Genres at the John C. Campbell Folk School.  Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Appalachian Review, POEM, Split Rock Review, Southern Poetry Review, STILL: The Journal, Poetry South, and *82 Review.  Her first collection of poems “Splitting the Soil” (Finishing Line Press) released in 2014 was followed by “Second Sight” (Kelsay Books) in 2021.

The poems in “Second Sight” have been called “honest, timely, and beautiful… a love letter to Appalachia and rural people everywhere who often don’t get their stories told in such a powerful and compassionate manner.”

The size of the class is limited, so registering early is recommended.  The venue for the class is the Towns County Democratic Party headquarters located next to Bacchus on the Lake in Hiawassee.  The class, however, is non-political and focused on improving students’ poetry and appreciation for poetry.

(As an added incentive, Bacchus opens at noon with music starting at 3 p.m.)

For registration information, email Glenda Beall at gcbmountaingirl@gmail.com.  Checks to cover the $40 fee should be made out to North Carolina Writers’ Network.  For an address to mail checks to, email Sandy Benson at sandybenson28909@gmail.com.

Zoom Poetry Workshop Oct 3: Inspiration & Prompts

 One Art Journal of Poetry Presents 

From Personal to Universal: Using Emotion to Craft Deeper Writing

with Karen Paul Holmes, NCWN-West member 

Thursday, October 3, 7:00-9:00pm (Eastern) 

Duration: 2 hours 

Price: $25 

Workshop Description: 

Writing the personal can make your poems more expansive, more capable of striking a true chord in others. In this workshop, we’ll explore ways to “go inward to go outward”— to draw from emotionally resonant personal experiences and observations to find deeper connection with readers. We’ll discuss a range of poems that effectively navigate concepts of joy, anger, grief and other emotional states. Join us for a two-hour session focused on giving you the freedom to express emotions and the tools to craft the poems you want and need to write. You’ll leave with prompts and a healthy dose of inspiration. 

About The Instructor:

Karen Paul Holmes won the 2023 Lascaux Poetry Prize and received a Special Mention in The Pushcart Prize Anthology. Her books are No Such Thing as Distance (Terrapin) and Untying the Knot (Aldrich). Her poems have been widely published in journals such as Plume, Diode, Glass, and Prairie Schooner and have also been featured on The Slowdown and The Writer's Almanac. After a long career in Corporate America, which included leading workshops at international conferences, Holmes became a freelance writer and has taught creative writing to adults at various conferences and venues, including John C. Campbell Folk School. She’s a member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network. 

To register: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/oneartajournalofpoetry/1393439

Poet Scott Owens to Teach Workshop at Moss Memorial Library June 16

We are fortunate to have Scott Owens teach a workshop for us at the Moss Memorial Library in Hayesville, NC, Friday, June 16, 2:00-4:45 PM.

Scott Owens writes poetry as if he were a painter. Painters see more than other people see. They look beyond the obvious. Scott sees and invites the reader to visualize images, actions, beliefs, purposes, motives, and results of what he has gleaned from his life as a child, a husband, a father, a teacher, a human being who took notice.

Workshop Title: Inspiration Surrounds Us: How to Have Enough to Write About for at Least 4 Lifetimes.

Fee: $45.00 A portion of the fee goes to NCWN-West.

Send a check before June 10, made to Glenda Beall, and mail to 581 Chatuge Lane, Hayesville, NC 28904

Scott Owens

Scott is the author of 19 collections of poetry, and more than 1200 published poems. He has received awards from the Academy of American Poets, the Pushcart Prize Anthology, the NC Writers' Network, the NC Poetry Society, the Poetry Society of SC, and many others.

His poems have been featured on "The Writers' Almanac" 7 times, "Poetry in Plain Sight" 4 times, and "Your Daily Poem" 13 times.

He is Professor of Poetry at Lenoir Rhyne University and has taught creative writing for more than 20 years, including in excess of 40 community or conference workshops.

His books cover a wide range of topics including a love of nature, surviving an abusive childhood, growing up on a farm, writing, religion, dreams and nightmares, parenting, politics, philosophy, existentialism, and of course, love.

He has collaborated with poet, Pris Campbell, on two novels in poetry; with artist, Missy Cleveland, on an illustrated collection of poems for children; and with photographer, Clayton Joe Young, on two collections featuring images of the North Carolina Piedmont. 

In his spare time, Scott owns and operates a successful coffee shop in downtown Hickory. He serves as President of the Hickory Downtown Development Association. He has hosted Poetry Hickory at his coffee shop for 17 years. Several of our NCWN-West poets have read there.

Scott has always loved the NC mountains. In his younger days he was an avid hiker, who spent one summer hiking the mountains to more than 100 waterfalls. He is also an avid birdwatcher, and on a recent weeklong visit to the Smokies, saw 23 bald eagles.

Born and raised on farms and in mill villages in and around Greenwood, SC, he now lives on an acre near downtown Hickory where he constantly weeds his garden, prunes his trees, and tends his flock of 8 egg-producing chickens.

He says you can take the boy off the farm, but you can never take the farm out of the boy.

Poet Mike James to teach a poetry workshop at Writers Circle Studio, Hayesville, NC, Saturday, April 14, 2018

Saturday, April 14, 2018
Poetry workshop, Formally Speaking - 12:00 noon until 3:00 PM

Writers Circle Studio, Hayesville, NC

Formally Speaking

This class will focus on different types of traditional poetic forms such as the sonnet, the villanelle, and the sestina, and will also include other verse forms such as erasures, found poems, prose poems, and last poems.    

Mike James is the author of eleven poetry collections. His most recent books include: Crows in the Jukebox (Bottom Dog, 2017), My Favorite Houseguest (FutureCycle, 2017), and Peddler’s Blues (Main Street Rag, 2016.) 

His work has appeared in over 100 magazines and anthologies throughout the country. He has also been active as an editor for The Kentucky Review, Autumn House Press, and his own Yellow Pepper Press. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and the Paterson Poetry Prize.

Read a recent interview with Mike here.

After years spent in South Carolina, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, he now makes his home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina with his large family and a large assortment of cats

Mike James will read his poetry at Writers' Night Out in Blairsville, GA 
Friday night, April 13, 7:00 PM.   
Contact Karen Holmes - http://www.facebook.com/karenholmespoetry

WRITERS CIRCLE AROUND THE TABLE 2018 CLASSES 

Contact Glenda Beall -- gcbmountaingirl@gmail.com

Don't wait until the last minute to register for a class. If we don't have a minimum five days before the start of the class, we cancel the workshop.
                   Fee: $45.00                      Limit: 10 students

To Register for classes, send check to arrive before deadline, to Glenda Beall, Writers Circle, 581 Chatuge Lane, Hayesville, NC 28904 - Please copy and include the Registration Form page. You may also pay online with PayPal for this class. The link for this class is:

 http://www.glendacouncilbeall.com/p/schedule.html,

NCWN-West and Georgia Poetry Society Team Up for Two Events

An exciting weekend is in store in Blairsville, Georgia (a lovely mountain community on the border of NC)

October 13: Writers' Night Out, 7 pm

October 14: Georgia Poetry Society meeting (non-members welcome), 9:30 am-3 pm

Writers' Night Out features two local writers, Mary Michelle Keller and Natalie Grant.

Open mic follows - sign up at the door to read poetry or prose for 3 minutes. 

Union County Community Center in the heart of Blairsville, GA. Food and drink available (self-pay) at the View Grill - please arrive by 6 pm if you're having dinner. 

The Georgia Poetry Society quarterly meeting takes place at the Choestoe Schoolhouse, Blairsville. 

Featured presenters: Georgia poets Travis Denton and Katie Chaple. NC poets, Tina Barr and Brett Martin

The day includes presentations on craft, hands-on writing exercises, poetry contest announcements, and an open mic—plus the camaraderie and good spirits of fellow writers. Breakfast items will be provided, and lunch from G & G Bakery and Café will be available for purchase on site. While the meeting will be geared toward poetry enthusiasts, all writers are welcome. More info here: GPS Fall meeting. If you plan on having lunch, please RSVP to Lyn Hopper by Oct. 10 at gpstreas@gmail.com 

Your Daily Poem.com presents its Third Annual Poetry Writing Workshop October 21–23, 2016 Black Mountain, NC

Think poetry is boring? Think again! Come spend an inspiring, relaxing weekend listening to, laughing at, learning from, and loving poetry in a gorgeous mountain setting. Spend time with some of Your Daily Poem’s most charismatic, successful poets as they guide and encourage you in turning poetry into an uplifting and
satisfying part of your life. Space is limited; register now so you don’t miss out at www.YourDailyPoem.com.
 
What is Your Daily Poem? YourDailyPoem.com was born in 2009 as a way to prove that poetry is
not the dull and boring thing too many people (incorrectly!) believe it to be. Today, well over 25,000 people visit YDP each month to enjoy poems about everything from cheeseburgers and cheerleading to activism and
autism. Are you fascinated by the details and nuances of everyday life? Do honesty, wit, and introspection 
make you smile? Could you use a 2-minute infusion of something fresh to perk up your  everyday routines? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, come be a part of the YDP family!
 
Whether you’re someone who wrote off poetry years ago as a waste of time, someone who doesn’t know much  about poetry but wonders how it might enrich your life, an aspiring poet in search of direction, or
a poetry lover eager to share your passion with like-minded folk, there’s a place for you at Your Daily Poem. Learn more at www.YourDailyPoem.com
.
Accommodations for our 2016 event are at the beautiful Blue Ridge retreat and conference center in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Nestled in the heart of Western North Carolina, just 15 minutes from Asheville, you’ll be just 2 miles off I-40, and conveniently located to airports in Asheville, Charlotte, and Greenville, SC. 

Presenters will be Jan Seale, Edwin Romand, Ruth Moose, and Gilbert Allen. Please visit YourDailyPoem.com, for the schedule of events, and information on accomodations, etc. 

Links for this workshop are:

 
http://www.YourDailyPoem.com
http://www.JayneJaudonFerrer.com
http://commagoddess.blogspot.com

POETRY DAY SET FOR APRIL 2,2016, AT LENOIR RHYNE UNIVERSITY, HICKORY, NC; CO-SPONSERED BY NC POETRY SOCIETY

Poets and poetry lovers from around the state will converge on the Colloquium Room at the Lenoir Rhyne University Library in Hickory, NC, from 11:30 to 3:30 P.M. on April 2 for this year’s celebration of Poetry Day. This event co-sponsored by the NC Poetry Society and Lenoir Rhyne will feature readings and workshops by this year’s winner of the Lena Shull Book Award, Stan Absher, and noted poet and scholar Kathryn Kirkpatrick of Appalachian State University.

The Lena Shull Book Award is presented annually at Poetry Day by the NC Poetry Society to the best new poetry manuscript by a NC poet. This year’s winner, “Mouth Work” by Dr. Stan Absher, will be published by St. Andrews Press. Absher, received his PhD in 18th century literature from Duke University in 1986. He is also the author of The Burial of Anyce Shepherd (Main Street Rag Publishing, 2006) and Night Weather (Cynosura Press, 2010).

As part of the day’s events, Dr. Absher will read from his award-winning book and lead a workshop entitled “The Very Word Is Like a Bell.” Using examples from several poets (e.g., Keats, Elizabeth Bishop, Philip Larkin, Henry Reed), the workshop will focus on how a shift in diction or an image or metaphor can transform and enlarge the working space of a poem to include multiple, even conflicting, points of view and bodies of experience. Participants will look at strategies for introducing and exploiting these shifts to create richer poems that, via text or subtext, embrace more of life and see more deeply into its complexities.

Dr. Absher’s reading and workshop will be complemented by a reading and workshop from poet and scholar, Dr. Kathryn Kirkpatrick. Author of six collections of poetry, including,Our Held Animal Breath, winner of the NC Poetry Society’s Brockman Campbell award, Dr. Kirkpatrick is a literary scholar in Irish studies and the environmental humanities at Appalachian State University. She has published essays on class trauma, eco-feminist poetics, and animal studies. She is also editor of Cold Mountain Review, a literary journal founded at ASU in 1972.

Dr. Kirkpatrick’s workshop will be entitled “Running Aground: When Poets Get Stuck, and will offer suggestions for cultivating flexibility in our creative lives, especially in response to getting stuck in writing projects. Participants will address how their subjects might be asking us for a change of poetic form and how a shift in the circumstances of their lives invite them to engage in a different writing practice. Participants are asked to bring the draft of a poem over which they feel they’ve run aground so that they can work to get themselves back into the creative flow.

Poetry Day will also include an Open Mic (limited to 10 participants) and book sales for NC Poetry Society members in attendance.

Poetry Day is sponsored by the North Carolina Poetry Society and Lenoir Rhyne University

Readings are free and open to the public. Workshops cost $10 each. Register by contacting Scott Owens (828) 234-4266 or asowens1@yahoo.com

Scott Owens www.scottowenspoet.com www.scottowensmusings.blogspot.com www.poetryhickory.com www.wildgoosepoetryreview.com www.234journal.com www.ncpoetrysociety.org

Award Winning Poets - Don't miss this workshop if you write poetry

Workshop Opportunity with Award-Winning Poets

Chelsea Rathburn and James Davis May are teaching a poetry workshop on Saturday, February 21, 10 am – 1pm, at Young Harris College in Young Harris, GA. The widely published poets, who happen to be married, are both assistant professors of English and creative writing at Young Harris College.

The workshop is geared to intermediate to advanced poets, and the fee is $20 per person.  Reservations are on a first-come/first-served basis.  Send your check, payable  to Rosemary Royston, POB 694, Young Harris, GA, 30582, along with your name, address, and email.  The class will be held on the campus of Young Harris College.  Once registration is received, further details will be provided. 

Rathburn is author of two full-length poetry collections, A Raft of Grief, published by  Autumn House Press in 2013, and The Shifting Line, winner of the 2005 Richard Wilbur Award. Her poems have appeared in The Atlantic, Poetry, The New Republic, The Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, and New England Review, and her prose has appeared in Creative Nonfiction. In 2009, she received a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

May's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Five Points, The Missouri Review, New England Review, New Ohio Review, The New Republic, Pleiades, Rattle, The Southern Review and elsewhere. The former editor of New South, he has received scholarships from The Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Inprint, and the Krakow Poetry Seminar. In 2013, he won the Collins Award from Birmingham Poetry Review.

When the two poets read at Writers' Night Out last year, they were well-received and we were urged to have them teach a workshop. Here in our mountains, we are fortunate to have poets of their quality available for classes. 

For more information, please contact Rosemary Royston at 706.897.6667 or rosemary28rr@gmail.com .

Don't Miss this Poetry Class - Great Teacher

Check out this poetry class at John C. Campbell Folk School on the weekend of April 12. Sounds amazing, doesn't it?

We hear it will get cancelled unless more students sign up. Take this opportunity, if you live in the local area, to get the 1//2 price fee. Here's the description:

MITAKUYE OYASIN: POETRY AND THE NATURAL WORLD 

"Mitakuye Oyasin" is a Lakota Sioux prayer translated, "We are all related." It's a prayer of gratitude for all living things. In that spirit, enjoy the poetry of Wendell Berry, Mary Oliver, and others as we explore the poetic voices of the natural world. Using science and history, we'll investigate how writing poetry can reveal and deepen our relationship to this amazing planet. We'll gain inspiration from early spring in the mountains by taking our classroom outdoors on peaceful walks. All levels welcome.



Instructor:

Mary Carroll-Hackett:

Mary earned her MFA from Bennington College in Vermont in 2003. She now teaches creative writing at Longwood University in Virginia, where she founded "The Dos Passos Review," edits for Briery Creek Press, and administers the Liam Rector First Book Prize for Poetry. Mary's fiction has appeared in "The Carolina Quarterly," "Clackamas Literary Review," "The Pedestal Magazine," and other literary journals. She is the author of several books and chapbooks, most recently "The Real Politics of Lipstick" from Slipstream Press





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